Lambert named a Cherry Finalist, Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar

Psychology professor Kelly Lambert has been named one of three finalists for Baylor University’s Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. Each finalist will present a series of lectures at Baylor during fall 2023 and give a Cherry Award lecture on their home campuses.

The recipient of the Cherry Award — the nation’s largest teaching award — will receive $250,000 along with $25,000 for their department and teach in residence at Baylor University during an upcoming semester. The winner will be announced in spring 2024.

Lambert was also invited to be a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for the academic year 2024-2025. She will attend classes and other activities at six to eight campuses across the country and give a public lecture at each.

Lambert’s research focus is neuroplasticity, particularly the brain’s ability to change its structure and function based on new experiences. She and her students study rats and other mammals to learn about their reactions to stress, depression, and parenting. They also look at ways to build mammalian resilience.

One group of students she is working with this summer “is exploring the impact of anticipating positive events on the structure and function of the brain. At a time when most of the research focuses on fear, stress, and cognitive decline, we need more animal models for positive experiences,” said Lambert, the MacEldin Trawick Chair and Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience. “Our rats in the enhanced anticipation group are exposed to several positive experiences each day such as froot loop rewards and trips to a Disney-type of rodent-enriched experience we call`rat park.' It will be interesting to see how extended anticipation changes their brains.”

Harrison and McConnell receive SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Award

Management professor Jeffrey Harrison and law professor Julie McConnell were named Outstanding Faculty Award recipients by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). The award is the state’s highest honor for faculty at Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities, recognizing superior accomplishments in teaching, research, and public service.

Harrison’s students take part in a variety of hands-on learning opportunities. Together, they co-author business cases, which he adds to the Robins Case Network, a website he created in 2010. He supervises them on consulting projects that help businesses and non-profits in Virginia, including the Multiple Sclerosis Society, St. Joseph’s Villa, the Richmond Symphony, and the International Hospital for Children.

“My success can be attributed to the quality of the people I work with, excellent administrative leaders who support everything I do, the undeviating support of a companion who has let me work long hours without complaint, and great blessings that consistently exceed my expectations,” said Harrison, the W. David Robbins Chair of Strategic Management.

Julie McConnell has served as the director of the University of Richmond’s Children’s Defense Clinic since 2011. She has represented children and families for more than 25 years, previously serving as an assistant public defender and child abuse and domestic violence prosecutor.

“It is profoundly meaningful to have the work my students and I do in the Children’s Defense Clinic championed in this way,” McConnell said. “Every year, Richmond’s law school clinics, externships, and other programs provide thousands of hours free legal representation to the least fortunate among us. I am deeply grateful to the University of Richmond for their support of our efforts.”

Jacobsen honored for work in global health

Health studies professor Kathryn H. Jacobsen has received the 2023 Velji Global Health Award for Teaching Excellence. This award from the Consortium of Universities for Global Health honors a faculty member who is an outstanding teacher and has had a particularly significant impact on the lives of those living in areas where access to health care is lacking.

An epidemiologist, Jacobsen joined the Richmond faculty in 2021. During her first year at UR, she and the nine students in her seminar course on global infectious diseases conducted an in-depth study of the loiasis, commonly known as African eye worm. Their group paper, which argues that loiasis should be included in the World Health Organization’s priority list of neglected tropical diseases, was published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.

“Every member of the class contributed to the entire process from choosing which disease to focus on through writing our final paper,” said Jacobsen, the William E. Cooper Distinguished University Chair. “There’s no better way for students to learn than through active participation in research that has real-world consequences.”